TSR Example from the worst TSR adventure module(s) ever published

[Dr. Harry]

http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=4023

That's our boy Carl's resume.

--Erik

Hey! This guy ruined one of my favorite games!

(I refer to the way in which Chill went from fast moving and quick to resolve with clear visual layout to that abysmal Mayfair Second Edition.)

 

[Simplicity]

But to return to topic, yeah, that's a clunker of a product. Not Spawn of Fashan bad, but bad. And I love the parody encounters. The lumberjack one in particluar made me laugh, as it reminded me of an old Planescape joke we used to have about how hard it was to start a PS adventure for publication. "A mysterious old man comes up to you in a tavern and says 'the multiverse needs saving! Here's 100 gp.'"

Oooooh. A positive review from Monte! I'm a big-league bad RPG writer now!

I think that's actually why I never got into playing Planescape. The berk-isms aside, I just couldn't for the life of me figure out how the players would get involved with the machinations of the planes at first level (and I just can never bring myself to start at a higher level). It's like they'd have to get restricted to the weakings-only section of Sigil for a while. Or start off in some normal world and wind up in Sigil later.

Torment (the CRPG) did this well by keeping you in the Dustmen Mortuary for the first couple of levels. So, your only real opponents are mindless zombies. Captivity of any sort works well, I guess... Dark Sun had the same problem, but there were ample opportunities to start off as a slave, so it didn't matter.

Hey! This guy ruined one of my favorite games!

(I refer to the way in which Chill went from fast moving and quick to resolve with clear visual layout to that abysmal Mayfair Second Edition.)

I'm not sure why I look back fondly upon Chill. I only ever had one adventure for the dang thing. I think I just liked the little counters. I never ever saw the second edition though...

 

[Dragonbait]

All right, I rolled 12%. The modorn is a liar.

Didn't someone write up some material with % "liar" instead of lair. Maybe it was just a minor fluff...

I *think* I read about this somewhere. It was a type-o in an old D&D book, but another gaming company took that (I guess the copied a great deal of D&D's rules and claimed it was their own creation) and put it in their books too. So in that system, all monsters had "% in liar" as a stat.

 

[Dragonbait]

What is sad, is that some of these "encounters" remind me of the old encounters I would design in my younger days..
The nymph encounter stands out in my mind. I always had those huge plot holes and erroneous logic, like that encounter had. It really came from a lack of understanding some of the basic rules and how D&D's magic worked.

Thankfully, I have improved some over the years...

it reminded me of an old Planescape joke we used to have about how hard it was to start a PS adventure for publication. "A mysterious old man comes up to you in a tavern and says 'the multiverse needs saving! Here's 100 gp.'"

I thought I was the only one who's brains would melt trying to get things started in PS. I LOVED that setting, but almost never ran any home-brewed adventures since I could not figure out how to get one going.

 

[StupidSmurf]

What is sad, is that some of these "encounters" remind me of the old encounters I would design in my younger days..
The nymph encounter stands out in my mind. I always had those huge plot holes and erroneous logic, like that encounter had. It really came from a lack of understanding some of the basic rules and how D&D's magic worked.

Thankfully, I have improved some over the years...



I thought I was the only one who's brains would melt trying to get things started in PS. I LOVED that setting, but almost never ran any home-brewed adventures since I could not figure out how to get one going.

Hah. You're not alone. I bought the boxed set and a few of the books, read them all, and thought to myself: "Wow, check out all of the nifty, outstanding stuff....that my players will never run through!"

 

[Cam Banks]

For what it's worth, in my time at TSR, things never worked this way. If there were 16 staff members, they were all working on individual projects, or in small teams of two or rarely, three. TSR did a lot of boneheaded things (and did indeed get driven into the ground) but the process of how products were designed wasn't one of them. Not understanding how the market actually worked was TSR's problem.

This is at least true of the DL design team, who split up to write one or two modules each, focus on art, or writing the novels, or editing... it's just how you explain it, really.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Ozmar]

I love that bandit encounter.

"You see a bunch of people blah blah blah"
I bet by this time the players are already starting to roll initiative, but nooooo, first you have to listen to stuff like "they are not discussing the weather, nor are they chewing gum....and they have weapons..."
Now by this time I would have already fireballed them. Do I get a chance? Nope, gotta roll a D6 for surprise, even though you've been watching them for at least thirty seconds.

I love how the bandits charge them, and then if you roll a 6, the party surprises THEM!

 

[Ozmar]

For me, the worst one ever was Labyrinth of Madness. Even great writers like Monte have an off-product.

Blasphemy!

That was my favorite module! Well, ok, so it was technically IMPOSSIBLE to complete the adventure, and we all forgot why we were there in the first place, and everyone got really confused and lost long before the end, but still... what module doesn't need a few creative edits?

Ozmar the Forgiving

 

[jsewell]

And why doesn't the fireplace have any secret compartments?

more importantly, if it doesn't, why even mention it?

 

[jsewell]

Hahahahah! That second one kills me!

A group of men head by. They are not tarrying or running. Nor are they singing. They don't seem to be making apple pies. As far as you can tell, they're not talking about sports. They neither have sombreros nor stilts. These men are not acrobats. They have no expression as they don't dally to the west.

roflmao